


Cold

by AbsolutelyGarbage



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Angst, Blood, Complete, Death, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-26
Updated: 2014-01-26
Packaged: 2018-01-10 04:32:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1155110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AbsolutelyGarbage/pseuds/AbsolutelyGarbage
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s cold; you’d expect it to be warm. Pain usually feels like heat, blood is usually warm isn’t it? But it’s so cold, and that’s probably how he knows it’s the end.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cold

**Author's Note:**

> This started as Cop!AU but my JeanMarco cry playlist came on and it turned into canon angst. I will write cute things later, for now there is only pain.

It’s cold; you’d expect it to be warm. Pain usually feels like heat, blood is usually warm isn’t it? But it’s so cold, and that’s probably how he knows it’s the end. But he can’t bring himself to cry or regret even as his hand tries to staunch the flow of his own blood, he can see his bones from where he was bitten. Indeed this was the end, defeated in the same way his closest friend, perhaps more, had been over 5 years ago.

Jean didn’t want to die; he didn’t join the survey corps as a form of noble suicide. But now as he stood on death’s front stoop he couldn’t bring himself to be afraid. The pain was so strong it had a numbing effect, and he knew what was waiting for him on the other side. His chest heaved with the effort of every breath and yet he still staggered forward, dragging one foot because he could not feel it. Maybe it was broken upon impact, maybe some nerve had been severed, it didn’t really matter.

To anyone else he was running away from the fray, still trying to survive. No, he knew he was done for. What he was trying to reach was the hilt that had stayed through many blades, the one that had been held in the same hand that held the charred bones of Marco, the one that had been taken from that same soldier’s 3D Maneuver Gear once he’d learned that it was still intact. It felt like Marco had been guiding that hilt and the subsequent blades. Jean wanted to hold it now.

If he was being honest, he probably loved Marco but realizing that after someone is gone is painful, so he denied it. But now as his physical pain had reached its peak he let his emotional pain reach that peak as well, he loved Marco and he missed him more than anything. It hurt more than anything, he’d lost many friends over the years and yet the ache of that first loss never faded.

Jean fell to his knees, his heart throbbing in his ears. Not yet, almost there. Shakily letting go of his bleeding side he reached for the hilt laying in the grass. His fingers reached it, but what they wrapped around was not cold wood but warm flesh. As he laid on the wet grass, Jean’s eyes flitted upwards. Sitting next to him, holding his hands was Marco.

It could be he was close enough to death he could see the other side, it could be a hallucination of his frying mind. Jean chose to believe the first. He tried to speak but only a choked sound escaped as blood dribbled down his chin. Marco didn’t speak either, he just smiled at him, a sad smile while holding him close.

It was warm, very warm. In this warm and damp place outside the walls Jean Kirchstein finally breathed his last staggered breath.


End file.
